Hi all well on to the next project now the Mini Sidewalk has been done around 18 months.

Let me introduce my Fiancée's 1989 Mini Flame LE named Gary.

A little bit of his back ground, she bought him over 6 years ago now and learnt to drive in him and used him daily for around 2 years. He was taken off the road getting on for 4 years ago now when the smoking of the engine got worse and the rust issues caught up with the car. She decided to dry store him while she is at uni.

Gary himself we always thought was a solid little mini the previous owner had changed the original colours from the flame red and white roof to the Rover Nightfire Red and black roof you see now, this is one of the reason she bought him over other cars.

Plan for the build is to get the shell as right as we can, I will also be painting this car from start to finish so the paint side is a first for me. We are keeping the Rover Nightfire Red and black roof and adding some Mk2 style retro touches to the finished build to give him the retro look. My other half is also doing a seat re-trim to add a personal touch and also add to the overall retro look of the car.

His engine is currently a 1275cc Metro engine which was fitted when he was bought, we do have a standard 998cc to put in but lets see how the shell goes to decided when we rebuild the 1275 or put the 998 in for the time being, its all about time and funds...

We have a date and got a few years to get this car right, but I would like to take him to the IMM Bristol 2019...

Wish us luck

This is how he sat for the last few years

Bringing him home...

I will post some more photos soon of the some of the issues we have found so far.

Well we started cutting some of the rot out the boot a few weeks back, to find this and a little to much rust around the subframe mounts, the centre of the tyre well has gone the battery box and some of the rear seat section. So we have decided to go with a full boot floor. As we have always said this needs to be done properly and to cut the rubbish repairs out...

Some nice use of cable ties here haha

Rear valance cut off to see how bad things are...

A hole found on the rear seat bench section, enforcing the fact the boot floor needs to go.